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Story Time: The Week of Book Signings

Before we begin, you should know that the mug I’m currently drinking my hot apple cider out of has Grumpy Cat on it, courtesy my CP Kira. And it makes me unreasonably happy.

It’s impossible to have a case of the Mondays when Grumpy Cat already has them for ya.

Now, onto what we’re actually talking about: The Week of Book Signings! This past week I had the opportunity to attend three different book signings, which was kind of crazy considering how I usually only go to a couple book signings a year. They were for Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (SHILOH), James Dashner (THE MAZE RUNNER), and Veronica Roth (DIVERGENT). I was super excited for all three of them, and it was fun to meet them in that order, because that was also the order in which I originally read the books. SHILOH was one of my favorites back when I was about eight, I read THE MAZE RUNNER junior year of high school, and I’ve been obsessed with DIVERGENT since senior year.

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I went to Phyllis Reynolds Naylor‘s signing with Rebecca Cao–a fellow Wolverine writer–and her boyfriend. Phyllis is on tour to advertise the last book in her Alice series right now, and while I’ve never read those books, it was neat to see how passionate a lot of the people at the signing were, along with the broad range of ages who showed up, from little kids to college students to adults. When it was my turn to meet her, I told her how SHILOH was one of my favorite books growing up and I have a beagle now. She’s an absolute sweetheart, full of the kind of spunk that makes a person glow. I’m definitely going to have to check out her Alice series.

On Thursday, my friend (and future roommate) Emily and I sat impatiently through our evening classes before hurrying off to James Dashner‘s book signing, to talk about his new book THE EYE OF MINDS. Because of said classes (and a bit of confusion with our taxi driver), we didn’t get there until after he’d finished speaking and was already a good way into signing books, but we did manage to still score the last spots in the signing line–which actually worked out quite a bit in our favor, because it meant he could just stop and talk to us when it was our turn, since we were the last ones there.

We talked to him about his books, and our majors, and other such things, and then as we turned to leave, he called out a “Good luck with writing!” and I managed a thanks with a smile, and one of the people from the book store told me to come back if I ever had a novel of my own published. I looked back and sort of laughed and said, “I’ll attempt,” because what else is there to say, right?

It was especially cool getting to meet James Dashner because I first picked up my copy of THE MAZE RUNNER at the airport as my mom and I waited for our flight home from my first writing conference, the Writer’s Digest Conference 2011, in New York City. Whenever I think of that book now, I also think of that feeling of hope, that excitement and contentment that accompanies a good writing conference–the idea that maybe I could write a great book and get published someday, too.

When Emily and I purchased our copies of THE EYE OF MINDS, we managed to get one that was printed upside down. The store offered to replace it for me, but I’ve always had a thing for messed up books since they’re more unique, so I kept it. Keeping with the theme of it being upside down, James Dashner also signed it upside down for me, and joked that it’ll be worth, “Maybe like five dollars someday!”

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Last but MOST CERTAINLY not least, I MET VERONICA ROTH!!! I went to the signing with my vlogging partner Hannah, Emily again, and mi madre (who was awesome enough to drive us all to Chicago). You can watch a video about it on Hannah and Julia’s Vlog.

We drove out Friday evening, and then got into line to wait for the signing around 11:00 AM central time on Saturday, Starbucks in hand. The event was by far the biggest book signing I’ve ever been to–it sold out over a month ago, with a thousand VRoth fans getting to meet her and have books signed–and a good number of them were already ahead of us in line, even though the event itself didn’t begin until 2:00.

Our seats in the theater for the interview portion of the event depended on where we were waiting in line, while our numbers for the book signing itself were predetermined by when we purchased our tickets–which meant that while my mom and I had ticket numbers 220 and 221, Hannah’s ticket number was 890.

We managed to snag seats in the fifth row, center section of the theater, which meant that our view was this:

Which, you know, is a pretty good view.

Before Veronica and the interviewer–Margot Wood of Epic Reads Tea Time fame–came on, the theater kept us busy listening to an organist who had risen on a little stage from the orchestra pit to play songs from the Beatles, and Phantom of the Opera, and more. It was brilliant.

Then Margot and Veronica DID come on, and we all basically just went insane, because OMG VERONICA ROTH.

The interview lasted about an hour–you can watch it here. At the end, Veronica surprised us by bringing her brother Karl Vincent Roth on stage to perform a song with her that he’d written for Tris–listen to it here (it’s called “The Mark”). Veronica sang backup vocals for him in the live performance.

Afterward, a massive screen dropped down over the stage, and Veronica had us watch Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (both Hannah and my favorite HP) while we waited for our group to be called to go get our books signed (they had us leave the theater for the signing area, in the lobby, in groups of fifty). The movie finished before Hannah’s group was even called, but that was fine because she finished reading during the climax.

Also while waiting, we had the opportunity to meet Margot Wood. I professed my love of Tea Time to her, and she told me that my hair “is so soft!” (Makes sense, since my name means “youthful, or downy,” after all.)

Some shots of Hannah, Emily, and me freaking out with our copies of ALLEGIANT:

When it was my turn to meet Veronica Roth, I managed to hold down my squeeing enough to tell her she was my hero, and she sort of just looked down with a sheepish, disbelieving but grateful smile and said thanks–exactly the kind of response I’d expect from someone as awesome as Veronica. I still can’t believe how nice and down-to-earth she is; she tried to make the signing special and unique for every single one of the thousand people she met on Saturday. It was amazing.

After the signing ended–a good four+ hours after it began–we headed into downtown Chicago to do all the touristy things, like drive down Lake Shore Drive, visit Millennium Park and Michigan Avenue, and watch the Navy Pier fireworks.

I’ve never been to Millennium Park at night, especially towards the end of October, so it was cool seeing how empty it was–it had a bit of a real life dystopian-fiction feel to it.

My favorite part was seeing Crown Fountain (aka the “face fountains”) completely empty of people with the water turned off. The faces were still all lit up, but everything else I associate with Crown Fountain was gone–there was no sunlight reflecting off the tiles, no shrieking children splashing through puddles. The only sounds came from the street and our voices echoed between the two fountains.

Because it was the Saturday before Halloween, Navy Pier put on a special out-of-season fireworks show, which we watched from Lake Shore Drive. Afterward, we made our way to the pier itself, where we wandered and then got a very late dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. At that point, it was around 11:00 PM central time (so midnight our time) and the only things we’d had to eat that day were Starbucks twelve hours before, and then popcorn during the movie.

Understandably, we were all pretty loopy by then.

Afterward, we all crashed the instant we turned the lights out. Sunday, we got brunch at my favorite Chicago-area crepe place, and then headed for home. On the way, we stopped at a beach, which was cold but gorgeous.

A bunch of giant, flat boulders led out into a point, I think used for weather monitoring.

Emily and I climbed all the way out.

Overall, it was a fantastic weekend. Veronica Roth is an amazing individual, and I fall more in love with Chicago every time I visit.

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Now, special treat: In honor of meeting my writing idol (and you reading through this entire, monstrously long post), I’m giving away ONE SIGNED COPY OF ALLEGIANT to a lucky reader!

All you have to do is enter the Rafflecopter giveaway linked below. I’ve set up lots of different entry options, so hopefully at least one will work for you! The giveaway will run through November 7th at midnight, eastern time.

The first and only (unfortunately author don’t come to my state very often) signing I’ve went to was for Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead, but it was so cool to meet her! I would love to go to one of her signings again! I would also love to go to a Jennifer L. Armentrout signing as well! I have only read Divergent, but would love to continue the trilogy!

I’ve never been to a signing before ;((( it isnt in my country but im going this weekend to a signing of Lauren Kate, Im not a big fan of her but I like her books and I didnt read Allegiant read but im so excited! And I really want to win the Signed copy so badlly that im going to cry haha 😉

I haven’t attended any book signing before, because my favorite authors don’t come to my country… 😦 I would LOVE to meet Rick Riordan. And no, I haven’t read Allegiant yet, because I really want to but I spent my money on the House Of Hades.

I attended Penguin Teen Australia Live a few months ago and Aussie Authors, Jennifer Kloster and Will Kostains were they and we got their books and they signed them. which was pretty awesome. I would love to meet Veronica Roth, Richelle Mead, Cassandra Clare, Veronica Rossi, and just so many more and yes I have read allegiant but only in ebook form.

Oops, I haven’t attended any! I really wish authors would recognize their fans from all over the world, tho it’s hard because they get invites in tons of other places too. I wish my favorite like JDash, Brandon Sanderson, John Green, Lauren Myracle, kiera Cass, Cass Clare, etc (thats a lot) would visit asia. Halfway through it, tho people already posted spoilers. No hard feelings about that ending, it really is very brave for veronica to write that and i am just happy that somehow tris learned how to forgive caleb 🙂 have a good dayyyyy

Yeah, unfortunately a lot of it comes down to costs and what the various publishers in all the different countries are able to do. Hopefully someone will be able to do a signing your area soon, though! I know those authors would all love to visit, if they could.

Oh no, not at all, and I hope mine didn’t sound negative in return! I just wanted to make sure you knew it wasn’t up to the authors, because I’m sure they would love to meet you as much as you want to meet them.

That’s so amazing that you got to meet Veronica Roth! I went to a book signing with her and Lauren Oliver back when Divergent and Delirium first came out and really enjoyed listening to both of them speak about their inspirations for their books. It’s especially cool that Veronica wrote Divergent as a way of combatting her own fears (Tris’s initiation) and I’ve always admired her for that.

AHHH, I’m so jealous! I love Lauren Oliver–getting to meet both of them at one signing must have been amazing. And I still can’t get over the fact that Veronica did that–it’s genius, but it probably was also really hard.

Did you take I65 to Chigago? If so, you drove right through my town. 🙂 I won’t get my hands on a copy of ALLEGIANT for months. *small sob* Why are books so expensive?
I stared reading Dashner before the Maze Runner. I’ve been a fan since his 13th Reality series.

You honestly have no idea how stinking jealous I am right now. Like, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Alice series was a big one for me when I was in like elementary/middle school. I stopped reading it because as Alice got older there was, you know, content, but it was big to me then. And I’m a fan of James Dashner’s Maze Runners series for sure. Eye of Minds was decent, not quite as good as Maze Runners, but also good. And, I mean, obviously, Divergent trilogy. Veronica Roth.

Seriously, it’s a trait in my family (Mom’s side) that we have bad luck (sort of a joke in the family but pretty much it’s true), and right now I am feeling it. ALL THE LUCK FOR JULIA. Although major points to you for giving away a copy, that’s so nice of you. =) Problem is, I won’t get it, because of the bad luck streak. YAY!

You never know! I’m sure you’ve got like a zillion entries with the bot, so you’ve got a good chance of winning.

And HEY, I’m not actually that lucky. My good luck and bad luck balance each other out. Let’s not forget my propensity for finding bugs/dead animals in my food, and, you know, running into my loft multiple times a day (as my braincells die from previous hits, I run into it more).

Also: If you ever want a book from a book signing I’m going to, just let me know. I got Tati a signed Ally Carter book for her birthday earlier this year, and I’d totally be up for doing the same for you. 🙂

what a post so you had so much to say about your wonderful week mine felt like that if you sub out books for quidditch and reduce the amount of fun by a lot. and i got to see bo burnham who is a youtube comedian so i got to meet someone cool. i hope someday i get to meet my writing idol (you)